Background10The Joint Commission identified inpatient alarm reduction as an opportunity to improve patient safety; enhance patient, family and nursing satisfaction; and optimise workflow. We used quality improvement (QI) methods to safely decrease non-actionable alarm notifications to bedside providers.MethodsIn a paediatric tertiary care centre, we convened a multidisciplinary team to address alarm notifications in our acute care cardiology unit. Alarm notification was defined as any alert to bedside providers for each patient-triggered monitor alarm. Our aim was to decrease alarm notifications per monitored bed per day by 60%. Plan-Do-Study-Act testing cycles included updating notification technology, establishing alarm logic and modifying bedside workflow processes, including silencing the volume on all bedside monitors. Our secondary outcome measure was nursing satisfaction. Balancing safety measures included floor to intensive care unit transfers and patient acuity level.ResultsAt baseline, there was an average of 71 initial alarm notifications per monitored bed per day. Over a 3.5-year improvement period (2014–2017), the rate decreased by 68% to 22 initial alarm notifications per monitored bed per day. The proportion of initial to total alarm notifications remained stable, decreasing slightly from 51% to 40%. There was a significant improvement in subjective nursing satisfaction. At baseline, 32% of nurses agreed they were able to respond to alarms appropriately and quickly. Following interventions, agreement increased to 76% (p<0.001). We sustained these improvements over a year without a change in monitored balancing measures.ConclusionWe successfully reduced alarm notifications while preserving patient safety over a 4-year period in a complex paediatric patient population using technological advances and QI methodology. Continued efforts are needed to further optimise monitor use across paediatric hospital units.
Turner syndrome is associated with an increased risk of aortic aneurysms and dissection. Recent 2017 clinical care guidelines recommend medical therapy to treat aortic dilatation, although whether this slows dilatation is unknown. We aimed to describe a pre‐guideline cohort of Turner syndrome patients with aortic dilatation, the rate of dilatation following diagnosis, and post therapy dilatation rates. We conducted a retrospective review of Turner syndrome patients with a dilated aortic root or ascending aorta by current definitions. In total, 40 patients were included with 22 treated patients. Most patients had 45,X karyotype, were white, non‐Hispanic, and received both growth hormone and estrogen. Except for hypertension, there were no differences in risk factors among treated and untreated groups. Bicuspid aortic valve was very common. Treatment group patients had significantly more dilated ascending aortas by absolute measurements and aortic size index. In an adjusted model, there was minimal change in aortic measures over time and this was not associated with medication use. In conclusion, in this cohort, Turner syndrome patients with aortic dilatation were more likely to be treated if they had hypertension and if they met multiple dilatation criteria. Further study is needed to establish medical therapy efficacy on dilatation progression.
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